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I knew of what Elan was and still, reading that comic is infuriating. The whole troubled teen industry is glossy child abuse. gently caress I’m mad.
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Feb 11, 2020 13:50
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It's sad reading through the guys reddit posts. Their posts are a year or so old, which means it's been about 20 years since they got out, and they are still struggling with what these jackals did to them. I don't know if I could ever maintain a relationship with my parents after something like that. I really believe that parents need to be apathetic at best, complicit at worst, to leave their kid at an institution that meticulously controls/screens all means of communication for years and years.
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Feb 11, 2020 13:57
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I want to beat everyone involved with this child abuse factory with a baseball bat
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Feb 11, 2020 14:07
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Like, for real, it is not a modern revelation that if an institution prevents it's residents from speaking openly with the outside world, that they are most certainly doing very bad things in there. And this poo poo went on for 40 years.
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Feb 11, 2020 14:16
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Notable alumni Tiffany Sedaris artist, and sister of Amy Sedaris and David Sedaris. Michael Skakel Convicted in the murder of Martha Moxley. The case drew media attention largely because Skakel is related to the Kennedy family. Ben Weasel of the punk rock band, Screeching Weasel. I can see why they had to shut it down.
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Feb 11, 2020 14:36
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Elan mesk
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Feb 11, 2020 16:16
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The escape via a Vietnam draft vet. The parallel was perfect.
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Feb 11, 2020 16:53
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I am almost positive there was an A/T thread or some posts about this school some years ago. The webcomic and the terminology is familiar to me, but I can't seem to find them with cursory googling/forums search. Huh.
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Feb 11, 2020 17:33
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Topographic Nap posted:Notable alumni Tiffany Sedaris committed suicide not long ago and in the resulting piece, David Sedaris mentions Elan by name as a factor. Or in his other piece that mentions Tiffany as an adult; IIRC there are only two because being sent to Elsn permanently damaged her relationship with the rest of her family.
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Feb 11, 2020 17:49
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Tin Can Hit Man posted:It's sad reading through the guys reddit posts. Their posts are a year or so old, which means it's been about 20 years since they got out, and they are still struggling with what these jackals did to them. Sounds like the school went to lengths to hide everything from the parents and more that that probably reassure them with scripted calls and letters.
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Feb 11, 2020 17:50
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Pawn 17 posted:Sounds like the school went to lengths to hide everything from the parents and more that that probably reassure them with scripted calls and letters. Yeah, but like I said, the fact that all of that is screened should be a big red flag for any parent. When even your visits are escorted by a member of the school and you're never allowed to be alone with your child, most parents would wonder if something was up. But let's say that they were completely taken for a ride. The most damning aspect is that 20 years later, the parents are still utterly doggedly steadfast on the idea that they did nothing wrong.
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Feb 11, 2020 18:27
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I got totally absorbed by this yesterday, what a loving ride. Even today, the wikipedia article about the school looks scrubbed. As a dad, I wouldn't deserve to live if I ever voluntarily sent my child to a place like that. quote:The most damning aspect is that 20 years later, the parents are still utterly doggedly steadfast on the idea that they did nothing wrong. For some (terrible) people, admitting their own responsibility in causing so much misery is just not possible. They are *good* persons, they could never hurt their child, only help them. They are blind.
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Feb 11, 2020 18:39
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So I'm guessing that nobody involved with this ever say the inside of a cell, right?
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Feb 11, 2020 19:03
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Who What Now posted:So I'm guessing that nobody involved with this ever say the inside of a cell, right? I'm going to assume they probably run the state of Maine now or some poo poo
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Feb 11, 2020 19:05
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parents who do this should go to prison countries that allow this should be cut off from aid (jamaica im looking at you) people who condone this should be excommunicated
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Feb 11, 2020 19:15
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He links to this video, really looks like the school just dropped everything right when it closed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tn0TMbpkpY8
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Feb 11, 2020 19:18
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This is really hosed up, but I saw this video yesterday (the whole thing is a good watch but I'm gonna set a concise timestamp): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0_Xtfv2vb0&t=690s It's about a redditor who was purportedly posting from inside a cult-- it ends up pointing to a religious cult that teaches "God's love" means having sex with your family. They teach the girls to go get impregnated by outsiders so they can bring more children into the cult. The worst part is that it's still going today with chapters around the world: https://www.thefamilyinternational.org/en/
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Feb 11, 2020 20:49
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Tin Can Hit Man posted:Yeah, but like I said, the fact that all of that is screened should be a big red flag for any parent. When even your visits are escorted by a member of the school and you're never allowed to be alone with your child, most parents would wonder if something was up. This school was a therapy school, and almost all of these rules apply to modern mental health facilities. Not allowed to leave, all calls screened, no cell phone, no shoe laces, constant monitoring, straight jacket/bed restraints, etc. Elan pushed these boundaries only a little bit and the society/lies help the parents believe. For the webcomic story, they thought their kid was a drug addict because society and the war on drugs, they sent him to this school with therapy licenses (they have them without having a licensed therapist, good loophole) who confirms they kid is worse than they thought! When he goes out, they see him acting a little odd then suddenly he maces someone and starts yelling extremely angrily. Their reaction seems spot on for mediocre image driven parents. Otoh, some parents are the worst; my parents tried some poo poo like this when I was in my 20's that I barely managed to avoid, despite being an autonomous adult.
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Feb 11, 2020 20:51
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Uh I’ve been admitted to two mental health facilities and have never had my calls screened. What are you talking about?
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Feb 11, 2020 21:02
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GolfHole posted:parents who do this should go to prison free earl
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Feb 11, 2020 21:02
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tripwood posted:For some (terrible) people, admitting their own responsibility in causing so much misery is just not possible. They are *good* persons, they could never hurt their child, only help them. They are blind. People like this need to be locked up because they're a serious threat to society. Anyone who isn't willing to admit they're a horrible person is capable of doing anything because they don't think their actions are wrong.
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Feb 11, 2020 21:07
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Here's a quote from the author that gives insight in to his anonymity:quote:I have thought about spreading awareness by physically doing talks, or the possibility of being asked to once the comic is finished. However, I am scared of being targetted by ex-staff or residents, or putting myself in the spotlight where the influential people who run this billion dollar industry could find me or my family. There was a book in the 90s wriiten about Elan and its founder (Joe Ricci), the author was trying to expose them and ended up threatened and spooked to the point where her and her family fled the country. So... yeah. Kind of a scary thought. It sucks that those scare tactics work. But at the end of the day, I have kids and am more worried for them than for myself. From his Instagram a week ago.
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Feb 11, 2020 21:09
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1st_Panzer_Div. posted:Otoh, some parents are the worst; my parents tried some poo poo like this when I was in my 20's that I barely managed to avoid, despite being an autonomous adult. I totally get if you'd rather not talk about it, but if you're willing to share I'd be interested to hear.
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Feb 11, 2020 21:14
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Elan Musk can't keep getting away with this!!!
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Feb 11, 2020 21:16
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Julius CSAR posted:Uh I’ve been admitted to two mental health facilities and have never had my calls screened. What are you talking about? Uhhh gently caress. I pm'd you the where, not really comfortable posting it. Glad to know it's not a standard practice though. That's what I get for using anecdotal examples. I definitely am not cool sharing more though, sorry. Here's more Elansanity stuff though: Reddit has a number of AMA's about Elan, and there's a podcast from a survivor: https://www.last.fm/music/RED+BAR+RADIO/_/MIKE%27S+BOARDING+SCHOOL+STORY+-+PART+1 Edit: I just googled the mental health place's policy and they have it listed in some posted Certifications of Need, all calls are recorded and may be screened. This is a reputable intuition just outside a major city. 1st_Panzer_Div. fucked around with this message at 21:41 on Feb 11, 2020 |
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Feb 11, 2020 21:26
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loving hell. This place sounds like it was made by and for the kind of sociopaths who think you can cure autism/ADHD with a "good ol' spanking" Imagine being a kid with some learning disability and being sent to something like this. Brr.
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Feb 11, 2020 22:11
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Julius CSAR posted:I remember seeing a thing on dateline or 20/20 or something way back in the 90s about "teen transport companies" and I remember thinking "How the hell is any of this legal?" and I forgot capitalism and America. Still going, too. There's a whole industry around parents paying to have their kids kidnapped and hauled off to reform 'schools' or boot camps. Especially Deeply Christian families with gay kids.
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Feb 11, 2020 22:31
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Liquid Communism posted:Still going, too. There's a whole industry around parents paying to have their kids kidnapped and hauled off to reform 'schools' or boot camps. Especially Deeply Christian families with gay kids. What would happen to these kids if they pulled out a knife and killed those who were accosting them? Would they get in trouble? Obviously the parents can’t tell them “Oh btw honey, somebody is gonna be kidnapping you tonight”, cause then it wouldn’t work. What if a kid assumed it was a home invasion and just killed the poo poo out of them? Would they get in trouble? Or do they only send like ex-navy seals to kidnap unarmed children?
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Feb 11, 2020 22:35
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Nigmaetcetera posted:What would happen to these kids if they pulled out a knife and killed those who were accosting them? Would they get in trouble? Obviously the parents can’t tell them “Oh btw honey, somebody is gonna be kidnapping you tonight”, cause then it wouldn’t work. What if a kid assumed it was a home invasion and just killed the poo poo out of them? Would they get in trouble? Or do they only send like ex-navy seals to kidnap unarmed children? They'd be charged and go into the criminal system for killing staff of a rehabilitation organization that was picking them up with the permission of their parents. The parents, their beliefs about their 'bad kid' confirmed, would usually happily testify that the kid suddenly turned violent when told to go with the person peaceably picking them up. The court system rarely sides with a minor over their parents in the absence of documented abuse. Liquid Communism fucked around with this message at 22:40 on Feb 11, 2020 |
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Feb 11, 2020 22:38
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Liquid Communism posted:They'd be charged and go into the criminal system for killing staff of a rehabilitation organization that was picking them up with the permission of their parents. Something tells me that has never happened before.
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Feb 11, 2020 22:40
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Liquid Communism posted:The parents, their beliefs about their 'bad kid' confirmed, would usually happily testify that the kid suddenly turned violent when told to go with the person peaceably picking them up. The court system rarely sides with a minor over their parents in the absence of documented abuse. I really dislike these hypothetical parents. I’m picturing the mother and father as being blonde-haired, blue-eyed, disturbingly similar looking, and living in Salt Lake City, Utah.
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Feb 11, 2020 22:41
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Our youth group used to do for fun kidnappings. Not even for terrible evil. Just a thing. Definitely not hard when the parents are in on it and you have either religion or a therapy school to back you, we used the church van. I assume scandals are generally what happens if the victim fights back with deadly force. And/or extreme cover-ups?
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Feb 11, 2020 22:46
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Jeza posted:I am almost positive there was an A/T thread or some posts about this school some years ago. The webcomic and the terminology is familiar to me, but I can't seem to find them with cursory googling/forums search. Huh. Im pretty sure it was a GBS thread from ~2 years ago and the OP was Prester Jane. I think the program was called “ABC” and it was in the thread title, but I can’t remember what it was an acronym for. E. Yes, it was ACE, I misremembered. Brother Tadger fucked around with this message at 01:56 on Feb 12, 2020 |
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Feb 11, 2020 22:57
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1redflag posted:Im pretty sure it was a GBS thread from ~2 years ago and the OP was Prester Jane. I think the program was called “ABC” and it was in the thread title, but I can’t remember what it was an acronym for. It wasn't ACE was it? Accelerated Christian Education... I seem to remember that thread too
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Feb 11, 2020 23:05
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1st_Panzer_Div. posted:Uhhh gently caress. I pm'd you the where, not really comfortable posting it. Glad to know it's not a standard practice though. That's what I get for using anecdotal examples. I definitely am not cool sharing more though, sorry. Here's more Elansanity stuff though: I can vouch for this, the mental health place I got sent to for being a shithead as a teenager was the same, except I got thrown into the adult unit because I had just hit 18. No laces, no cellphone, monitored phone calls, completely scheduled activities, (TV, being able to go to the activity room for basketball or ping pong, being able to hang out and socialize in the rec room, when to go to bed, when to wake up, even when you can go outside in the extremely closed in courtyard so smokers there had to wait for scheduled smoke breaks, and on and on), none of your own clothes, the food was poo poo and along with the medication it caused constant painful constipation and stomach aches, the attendants didn't give a single poo poo about anything and were more occupied with how to pass their shifts by doing the bare minimum so they could gently caress around on the computers, the medication wasn't prescribed on any sensible basis and was virtually only given out to sedate the people in the unit, I was asleep for the majority of the time and barely cognizant when I wasn't and I wasn't even a problem patient, they just did it as a loving rule even if the side effects were horrific. Worst of all you could only see your parents or loved ones like maybe once every two weeks, these visits were timed and like a loving prison they made you sit in the cafeteria along with everyone else whose family bothered to show up. They then stand around in the corners of the room observing you. If you told your parents about how poo poo and awful it was or asked them to get you out they would cut the visit short and then force you to stay in your room for the rest of the day. While you slept there were check-ins around two times a night which involved a dickhead, apathetic attendant loudly unlocking and opening the door then shining a flashlight onto you and your roommate, inevitably waking you up and preventing you from ever getting sound sleep. Showers were time, once a day, if you wanted to poo poo outside your room you had to loving ask an attendant to use the ONE main bathroom and of course you'd spend about an hour in there trying to get a rock hard iron turd out of your rear end, so there was a constant wait while everyone clutched at their stomachs in discomfort. Why couldn't you just go poo poo in the bathroom in your room? Because that would remove an attendant from the floor to go babysit the door of the personal bathrooms, and they didn't feel like doing that poo poo in case a resident snapped and had their weekly emotional breakdown from living in a loving prison. I thought it was probably just the adult unit, but when I passed the teen unit one day on the way to the cafeteria and their eyes were just as glazed over as anyone else's and it pissed me off to no end. There was no therapy, all you did was meet with a psychiatrist once a week if you were LUCKY, and these meetings were supposedly what decided whether or not you were able to leave, except it was total bullshit and completely arbitrary. They kept saying I was withholding thoughts of suicide or that I was just putting on a good act but I was literally just a kid who had been acting out for a month or two because of stress and unmedicated ADHD, and got sent there as a decision between that and I can't even remember what the gently caress else. They applied this useless method to presumably everyone there. Everyone was just constantly waiting to get out, sometimes the psych wouldn't see you that week, no reason given, just a useless gently caress who wanted to do as little as possible. These weeks were the ones where you'd always see at least one person lose it. The reason why they were so incredibly stingy with appointments and why the conditions were so miserable was obvious, the longer you stayed in there, the more money they could leach from your parents or family. Their end goal was to keep you in there as long as possible before their detainment became unreasonable in an obvious way. It's ingenious in the most hosed up way. You have no freedom, no ability to entertain yourself adequately, you're put on medication with no real sense to it and inevitably suffer emotional and physical side effects, the attendants are miserable, useless assholes that wear you down, you're constipated and cramping all the time, you can hardly get your fix if you're a smoker (I wasn't, but it's important to their method), you're tired all the time, if you're an addict you're going through bad withdrawal (and they don't give a gently caress about your withdrawal symptoms, so the guy who shat himself with a deluge of diarrhea that got pushed around by the attendants is poo poo out of luck since he just gave them their meal ticket to keep him there for months), and you have no freedom and just want to go home. This led to a cyclical situation where people who had been there for months and months would snap and have huge tantrums or wail on an attendant, and they would obviously use this as an impetus to increase the duration of what is essentially your imprisonment, leaching that sweet, privatized institution money off of you and your loved ones. I was lucky that I managed to keep my cool the whole time, but you go in there expecting to keep your head down and get out early and they do everything in their power to destroy your mental state so you'll act out, which they then use as ammunition to prove you're unhinged and a danger to yourself or others. I can't imagine how many people got sent in there for mild episodes or hoping to save themselves from suicidal ideation and just were psychologically destroyed and all their issues exacerbated by several orders of magnitude, just because they tried to get help. The goal was to institutionalize you, and condition you to be someone that would be a "repeat" customer. The thing that I saw that utterly enraged me was a schizophrenic, older man who basically had no concept of what was going on. They did the same poo poo with him, arbitrary, unfocused medication, hardly helped him with anything, gave him no therapy, and just led him from his bed to the rec room where he would sit on a chair for hours rocking back and forth, doing and saying nothing. I can't imagine how long he stayed there. They did nothing for him, he was quiet, totally non-violent, never acted out, his worst sin was just being non-functional and non-autonomous in his condition. I felt so loving bad for this guy, and the attendants were just cold, and uncaring. I guess you have to be to essentially get paid to be knock off prison guards to take "care" of people who weren't always all there while habitually ignoring the basic needs or feelings of the individuals in your care. I can't imagine how many places like this are out there. The Elan method is a tried and true way to create environments where the very nature of their oppression and deleterious psychological effects retroactively "justify" you being there. If you don't act out, you're hiding something and they're going to keep you there to "find out" what it is (hint, they don't give a gently caress either way), if you do act out, then obviously you belong there and can't leave. When you get out is entirely based on the whims of people who have no desire to let you go if the money comes in. I'm sure the only reason I got out within three months was because my parents took my word for how awful it was during my first visit and perpetually harassed them over the phone several times a day while showing up personally to demand I be let go. Even with that it took months because I was placed there involuntarily without their input after I was initially taken to a hospital. Long rear end post, but the point is that this poo poo is everywhere, it's in mental health, it's in troubled youth centers, it's in your prisons, it's in your nursing homes and it's in your rehab centers. It's privatization controlling institutions meant for rehabilitation and recovery. That dystopian poo poo where profit based care leads to them attempting to enslave you and create institutionalized, habitual relapsers to farm already exists to a degree greater than you can imagine. None of them give a poo poo, all the people involved in these systems become completely innured to the suffering of those under it because even the caretakers they hire will grow to loathe and actively detest the people who "make their jobs so hard" (boo-loving-hoo) even though the behavior of the people in these systems is entirely bred by the inhumanity of them. I've been crusading against this "care" center for YEARS on virtually every platform I can get my hands on. There are no words to fully describe how much I despise that place and how much it utterly conditioned me to be totally uncompromising on heavily regulated universal healthcare. The barebones regulation that allows placed like that and Elan to operate as long as they meet the pathetically lose need for a license (and then as a matter of course maybe hiring one professional for appearances who shows up as infrequently as humanly possible), is despicable. Don't EVER put your kids and loved ones into ANY institution without vetting it to the utmost degree, do not look at positive reviews ever, always the negative, do not listen to parents or caretakers who swear that it's great, all they give a gently caress about half the time is getting an annoying problem off their hands. Listen to the testimony of people who have BEEN in those programs, they are the only honest opinion you will ever get.
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Feb 11, 2020 23:15
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Fleta Mcgurn posted:Tiffany Sedaris committed suicide not long ago and in the resulting piece, David Sedaris mentions Elan by name as a factor. Or in his other piece that mentions Tiffany as an adult; IIRC there are only two because being sent to Elsn permanently damaged her relationship with the rest of her family. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/10/28/now-we-are-five quote:A few weeks after these messages were written, Tiffany ran away, and was subsequently sent to a disciplinary institution in Maine called Élan. According to what she told us later, it was a horrible place. She returned home in 1980, having spent two years there, and from that point on none of us can recall a conversation in which she did not mention it. She blamed the family for sending her off, but we, her siblings, had nothing to do with it. Paul, for instance, was ten when she left. I was twenty-one. For a year, I sent her monthly letters. Then she wrote and asked me to stop. As for my parents, there were only so many times they could apologize. “We had other kids,” they said in their defense. “You think we could let the world stop on account of any one of you?” She was in ninth grade.
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Feb 11, 2020 23:23
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quote:“We had other kids,” they said in their defense. “You think we could let the world stop on account of any one of you?” proscribed sentence: guillotine
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Feb 11, 2020 23:31
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Lil Swamp Booger Baby posted:I can vouch for this Thank you for posting this. Surely it can't be easy to talk about but know that it is really appreciated. I've struggled with mental health issues my whole life and feel extremely lucky to have avoided anything like this... so far.
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Feb 11, 2020 23:34
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Whoria Discordia posted:loving hell. This place sounds like it was made by and for the kind of sociopaths who think you can cure autism/ADHD with a "good ol' spanking" as far as I can tell they don't "learn" anything, except maybe how terrible humans can be to each other
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Feb 11, 2020 23:36
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Agreed, thank you for sharing.
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Feb 11, 2020 23:37
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